RE: [WinMac] Re: iMac

Michael Ayotte(apple[at]riverview.com)
Thu, 4 Feb 1999 09:09:47 -0800

>Look at those new G3s. Ok, so they have the same basic design as the iMac
>as far as case goes etc right? Who are these aimed at? Most likely the
>higher end people, perhaps even more specifically the graphics departments.
>Since when do you see graphics departments using disks more than home users?
>If one of those categories were to use disks, it would be the home users as
>those G3s will probably be on a network, yet they have a floppy drive (I
>checked to make sure it wasn't a zip or anything, doesn't seem to be). If
>Apple wanted to be innovative and remove the floppy drive, wouldn't you
>think they would have put in a superdisk or zip drive?

Definately not! Those are both proprietary standards. Both superdisk and
standard Zip are still still too small for many people to be usefull (The
new 250MB zips are a little better). I just upgraded from a jaz to a jaz
II. If the machine came with a zip, I would end up paying at least $50 for
something I would never use.

Why not let the end user decide.

The one flaw in the iMac is that it does not come with either SCSI or
Firewire. Eitherone would have been accecptable. USB for hard drives is a
joke. I hope the mystery slot can soon be filled with a SCSI or firewire
card soon.

At work (where we have 4 iMacs), the lack of SCSI is not an issue. I
already had all of our floppies turned into image files and burned on to
CDROMs. Many are also available on our file server. It's actually alot more
convenient that toteing around floppies.

Of coarse this little trick only works if you have another machine with a
floppy on the same LAN (or have a CD-burner).

>Probably, but they
>didn't, more ammo for the reason it was removed is due to cost.

Exactly, it would completely stupid to increase the cost of the iMac to
include a piece of equipment that is quickly becomming obsolete (and
already is for many people).

I don't think an iMac makes a good first computer for this reason, but it
makes a great second computer.

--
Michael Ayotte            apple@riverview.com
Asst. Dir. of IS
Riverview Systems Group   <http://www.riverview.com/>


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This archive was generated by hypermail 2.0b2 on Thu Feb 04 1999 - 09:17:13 PST